Hi, I recently set up a ubuntu 10.04 server and need instructions on how to set up Samba for the first time so I can access files from any of my computers on my LAN (windows, Mac, Linux) or remotely( like at my folks place) and also setup a media streaming service for my music and movies on my drives(including external). I am new to servers ( as I have not touched a server since the army in 2006) and I need help. I also would like to know how i can set up my own email server with it as well. My internal storage consists of 1 1TB Drive with an LVM of 80GB for the Server OS and ~800GB for the Media as well as a 1.5TB external Drive.
I am running this as a headless server too. So far I have VNC, Gnome-Core, Webmin, OpenSSH and Samba. As far as the Media Streaming goes, it would be nice to have it transcode the file should it be needed like to a PS3 as a uPnP. Any help would be appreciated.

I now VLC player does have streaming functionality but I don't know if it can transcode during the streaming. The command line version of vlc is called cvlc, by the way (though I don't now exactly what packages are needed to be picked up via APT to get all the functionality you need).
Note: I am not knowledgeable in this particular field so I can not assist you further. I could only give you some thoughts of mine.

Ah, but what I want to do is stream to other windows / linux computers not PS3

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ah ok. you had mentioned transcoding for the ps3. Anyway, for playing stuff over the network, can you use it as a samba server, and just add the network location to a media client on the other computers?

ah ok. you had mentioned transcoding for the ps3. Anyway, for playing stuff over the network, can you use it as a samba server, and just add the network location to a media client on the other computers?

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eh got it running but the Database kept being "corrupted." Got fed up and switched to XP and running Tversity and Twonky but may need to use my desktop (Gaaming) for streaming as it has 12gb of ram and a AMD 955BE.

First off, although you opted (possibly wisely) for the LTS, I would have gone for 10.10/11.04 - rate of change is quick at the moment and you may find things easier in the later releases. Also, you may have found gsambad helpful - this GUI tool is commonly used to ease configuring samba shares.

With regard to video streaming, the two utilities you've mentioned seem powerful, but work by live transcoding.

Serving video is basically contingent on your server's hardware and the use cases you expect. For example, if your server's CPU is insufficient to transcode the video on-the-fly (which depends on the quality of video you're pumping in, the output quality you desire, your internal network, external bandwidth, etc), then you may need to look towards offloading processing to another box on your network (which somewhat defeats the point of the server). However, an alternative would be pre-processing your video files for streaming. Whether you can do this or not depends on the free space on your server's drives versus the total space, the different qualities you'd like to output at, etc etc...

Personally, I would choose to forego live streaming, upgrade the internal network to Gigabit ethernet, and pull video files from the server on demand. This eliminates the risk of network or transcoding issues interrupting your viewing part way through, at the cost of a small delay to the commencement of viewing each video. Whether this is significant or not depends on your specific circumstances, considering video quality, frequency of access, concurrent accesses, etc.

As for streaming to remote locations, this can be complex (think of Youtube - it re-encodes your video as you upload it, not just to one different format but to multiple, catering for different devices and network bandwidths). You need to consider your specific needs - do you want high quality fullscreen video? Instant start, or can you wait a while? ... The simplest implementation would involve re-encoding to a lower-quality streaming format such as flv and setting up a web server such as Apache. The pre-encoded files can then be streamed on demand. Clearly though, this simple implementation has many downsides. More complex implementations would require significant development effort, and so probably a product similar to those you've discovered.

he simplest implementation would involve re-encoding to a lower-quality streaming format such as flv

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AFAIK, .flv is (like e.g. .mkv and .avi) a container format. That it is .flv does not say anything about the quality, compression rate etc. That depends on the codecs used for the audio and video.
Proof for the fact that it is a container format: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLV

flv does not say anything about the quality, compression rate etc. That depends on the codecs used for the audio and video.
Proof for the fact that it is a container format: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLV

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Quite correct; I was in a bit of a rush by that point, my low quality comment was trying to emphasize that the point was to take the originals and re-encode them into lower quality copies. You'd usually stick in a combination like H.26x & AAC. However, regardless of which codecs you choose, my understanding of flv is that all supported codecs are streamable.